


Only with the Heart

by Jaelijn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Post-Series, everyone is human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their plane low on fuel, Team Free Will has to land on an uninhabited island. It’s rather like camping, until Castiel starts to act strangely, Sam is plagued by nightmares and Dean isn’t sure whether he can trust his senses…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only with the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightagain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightagain/gifts).



> Set at some point past season 9, where all of Team Free Will is human. Also, I know nothing about airplanes and aeronautical procedures, so forgive any inaccuracies, please. Many thanks to my beta!  
> Written for the spn-summergen exchange on LJ for flightagain. Very happy to finally be allowed to publically share it with you all! Enjoy!
> 
> This fic is very indepted to a certain work of prose fiction, but since it constitutes a potential spoiler, I have put it in the endnotes!

“Fantastic. Just frigging fabulous. I told you! I _hate_ flying, Cas! And this is exactly why!”

Cas just stared at Dean defiantly. “This could not have happened if you had been flying with an angel.”

“Oh wow, how good for you!”

“Guys! Guys!” Sam stepped between them, his shoes kicking up sand. “Look, it happened. Just drop it. We have more important things to worry about now than Dean’s terror of flying.”

Dean couldn’t let it drop that easy. “Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” he groused. “If we hadn’t gotten on that plane-”

For a moment, Castiel almost looked hurt, but it smoothed over quickly. “We should be glad I managed to land her here instead of in the ocean, Dean,” he said, his tone entirely too sensible. “We could not have passed that storm front.”

“We’re stuck! On a frigging island! Without fuel!”

“Beats drowning in my book. And you screamed like a little girl when we went down.”

“Can it, Sam!”

To his credit, Sam bit down his chuckle and just grinned stupidly. Dean felt the sudden urge to punch something.

“Sam is correct, though. We should concentrate on finding shelter and water.” Castiel wiped a hand over his forehead, trying to clear off the dust and droplets of sweat and oil, but only managed to smudge everything. He looked ruefully toward their downed plane, its wheels buried in the sand. “We should return for supplies once we have found an adequate location.”

“And when it’s cooled down a little,” Sam quickly added. He was sweating buckets, as usual – Dean really didn’t know where he’d gotten those genes from. “Now, can we _please_ get out of the sun?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Coming, Cas?”

The beach was expansive and maybe even beautiful, the sand white and fine, but Dean didn’t really have eyes for it. His mind still so-not-helpfully flashed images of their rapid descent, even though it had apparently been a “controlled landing”. Dean was still shaken up, and he’d been white-knuckling even before they’d had to land on a beach. Demons, ghost, ghouls, even witches any day, but frigging planes!

“Dean.” Castiel fell into step beside him. “I’m sorry.”

“Forget it, Cas.”

“I asked for your trust and let you down. Again. I apologize.”

“Seriously, Cas, don’t worry about it, okay? You couldn’t have flown us through that storm. You did the right thing, taking us down.”

“If I had been a better pilot-”

“Okay, just shut up about that, now! You’ve become a qualified pilot in less time than any of us could have managed, and you’ve only been human for what – a year now?”

“Eleven months and 23 days,” Cas said. Of course he would know it to the date. He could probably give Dean the hour, had he asked.

“Exactly. I know how much this meant to you, okay, buddy? I don’t regret coming with.”

“Even now?”

“Even now. Hey, we stopped the Apocalypse together. We can handle escaping from a desert island.”

“Not so much desert, Dean, look!” Sam pointed straight ahead.

The seemingly endless stretch of beach met with a collection of rocks, cutting them off from whatever lay beyond with just sand and the sea in their backs. There were quite a few palm trees, and a recess between the rocks, almost like a little canopy. It was shade, and it looked rather welcoming.

“Shelter”, Sam declared, satisfied, “Maybe there’s even fresh water filtering through those rocks.”

“There are water-cleaning tablets in _Grace_ ,” Castiel said.

Dean would never get over the incredibly girly name Cas had chosen to give his small plane, but after Cas, of all people, had pointed out that Dean called the Impala “baby”, he’d kept his mouth shut.

“That’s great, Cas.” Sam strode ahead, examining the recess. “So we need weapons and blankets, and a fire, and maybe a first-aid kit, just in case. No signal rockets on the plane, I guess.”

Cas shook his head. “Regrettably, no.”

“Okay, first things first. We need to have a place out of the sun, and this is it. It’s also safe and defensible. So I’ll set everything up here and you head back to the _Grace_ to fetch stuff?”

“Heh.”

Sam shot Dean a bitchface. “What is it now, Dean?!”

“You’re a real life Boy Scout, Sammy!”

“Just get lost already.”

…~oOo~…

“You shouldn’t tease Sam so,” Cas said as they trekked back to the plane, following their own footsteps in the sand. Not that they could have gotten lost – there was nothing _but_ the plane on the beach for miles. “His suggestions were all reasonable.”

“It’s just for fun, Cas. You know, affectionate.”

“Like when you informed me that a lucky charm in the cockpit would be redundant.”

“Uh, no. That… Actually, that was just a really bad pun. You know, because the pilot’s an angel. Uh. Nevermind.”

Castiel shook his head. “I have not been an angel for a long time, Dean, and I was never a guardian.” He never spoke of his angelhood without sadness in his voice and on his face. It wasn’t that he was unhappy with his human life – at least Dean didn’t think so – just that there were things he missed. Dean had to hand it to him, though – he really knew his way around the plane.

Once they’d reached it, it took no time at all before Dean was piled with three light sleeping bags, a large blanket, a first-aid kit, a spray can, Cas’s angel blade and a pistol, while Castiel unearthed a box of energy bars, a tin of soup, and a 3 gallon bottle of water. Things actually didn’t look too bad. It was almost like going camping.

Back at the shelter, Sam had constructed a roof of sorts out of palm leaves, had dug a hole for a fireplace, and was building a bonfire out of driftwood and stripped leaves, his multipurpose penknife lying on the ground beside him.

“Shame we don’t have anything to barbecue.” Dean dropped the entire pile of stuff, rescuing the gun from coming in contact with the omnipresent sand by tucking it in the back of his waistband.

Sam looked up, pushing his hair out of the way with the back of his hand. “What’s wrong with you, Dean? Seriously, this isn’t summer camp. It might very well get really cold tonight.”

“Aww, come on. It’s not like we’re in real trouble. I mean, they’ll realize we’re lost when Cas doesn’t come back as scheduled, and as soon as the storm front is gone, we’ll radio out – right?”

Castiel nodded, carefully depositing the food on the rocks and in the shade. “The transmitter range should be sufficient once the interference has lessened.”

“See?”

Sam shook his head and kept on stockpiling leaves. “We might not even be on a tiny island. It’s hard to tell what is beyond these rocks, or how far the beach extends.”

“We are not in the proximity of any large landmass,” Castiel said.

Dean flopped down into the sand, not even caring that it got _everywhere_ , and stared up at the darkening sky. “Remind me again why we took a case on Hawaii?”

“Because demon activity on islands is rare, Dean.” Sam fiddled with his lighter and managed to ignite the fire on first try. “And so Cas could have his first long-distance flight. You know full well why we were out in the _Grace_ today.”

Because Cas had asked them to come. He had been proud of his accomplishments as a pilot. “Yeah, I know. Pass an energy bar, Cas?”

“Dean, I think we should ration out food.” Cas already had the hand on the box – and Dean knew he would cave if he insisted.

“Why? It’s not like we’ll get stuck here.” Dean looked towards Sam, who wore his serious face. “No way we’ll be stuck here!”

Sam and Cas exchanged a glance that was _so_ not comforting.

“What!?”

“We might be here for a few days until rescue can reach us. They will need to have a plane or ship to spare, and as long as we have shelter and supplies…”

“Great, awesome. I’m going to bed.” Dean spread out the blanket under Sam’s roof, snatched one of the sleeping bags and retreated into the shelter. It was nestled between rocks on three sides, the entrance just a small gap, and just large enough that even a moose like his kid brother could stretch out. It would be cozy with all three of them, but it wasn’t like the car wasn’t cramped.

Dean didn’t think he’d need the gun, but better safe than sorry. Still, with Sam and Cas’s quiet conversation as a backdrop, he was asleep in no time.

…~oOo~…

Dean woke in the middle of the night. He didn’t wake up suddenly, not like when he started up at some sound or a nightmare, but it wasn’t the lazy early morning grogginess either – just a feeling that something was missing, something was wrong. He patted for the gun in the twilight, only to find that Castiel was standing at the entrance to their shelter, shifting his weight. His silhouette still looked unfamiliar in the faded jeans and the loose, ill-fitting grey t-shirt he’d chosen to wear for the flight. The sleeping bag Cas had used lay abandoned by Dean’s side, and Sam was quietly snoring on the other end of the shelter.

“Cas? What is it, buddy?”

Cas looked back at him, his eyes reflecting what little light the rising sun had to offer. “I am sure it is nothing, Dean. Go back to sleep.”

“Did you hear something?” Dean pushed himself up on his elbows, his hand closing around the gun.

“I thought-” Cas cut himself off, shook his head. “My need to urinate must have played tricks on my senses.” He dropped back to his knees to crawl under the roof, rustling with his sleeping bag as he settled back down.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Jeez, Cas, you can’t keep saying things like that. You needed to take a leak and it messed with your head? Seriously, dude?”

Cas, as always, didn’t get the point. “Dreams are still very new to me.”

“What did you dream about then? Those fountains with those naked angel dudes with the water coming out of their…”

Cas frowned. “I don’t remember. It was nothing, I am sure.” And yet, he took care to have the angel blade within reach when he curled up on his side.

…~oOo~…

The morning came bright and early. The canopy of palm leaves offered some shelter from the sun, but it couldn’t keep the daylight out. Thankfully, it came with the good news that breakfast was actually allowed.

Sam, too, had brightened up a little – a good night’s sleep could do that to you. Dean was glad. He liked goofy-kid-brother Sam better than grumpy-spoil-sport Sam. On the other hand, Castiel was acting shifty. He was usually a quietly cheerful human – or, at least he pretended to be. Dean knew that Cas showed his affection and happiness far more readily than when he was feeling down, even though he had picked up some of Sam’s quicksilver moods and maybe a little of Dean’s sulking. At any rate, that morning he was quiet, brooding, taciturn and distant – almost angelic.

“Hey, Cas, anything the matter?” Sam, at least, had noticed, too.

Castiel visibly started out of his reverie, no longer staring off into space. He seemed to remember that he was holding an empty wrapper and placed it back in the box, along with the one Dean had decided to just drop into the sand, before turning his attention fully on Sam. “It is nothing. I was merely in thought.”

“Dude, you’ve had your head in the clouds!”

Sam grimaced and Cas breathed a sigh. “Dean, you know I don’t appreciate your puns on the fact that I used to be an angel of the Lord.”

“Aw, come on. You’ve got to admit it was a good one.”

Instead of smiling that fond, but indulgent smile Dean had come to expect, Castiel’s expression closed off and he rose abruptly to his feet. “The storm seems to have dissipated. I will see to _Grace_.”

The brothers finished their breakfast, then broke camp to follow Cas. They took only the weapons and the water – there would be time to get the rest of their stuff once they knew how the rescue would go down, and it seemed stupid to take it back and forth on the off chance that there might actually be something other than seagulls and crabs on this island. Besides, they might end up spending another night.

The _Grace_ still looked as foreign and isolated on the wide beach as she had on the evening before, and the walk there seemed to stretch endlessly. Once, Sam turned as though he’d seen something out of the corner of his eye, but when Dean whirled around, there was nothing there. Just sand and the ocean glittering in the sun in the distance.

Castiel was inside the cockpit, crouched before the console, and looking very unhappy.

“Cas?” Dean expected Cas to slip back into his habitual ‘Hello, Dean’, which had become both an in-joke and something of a ritual between them, but Castiel just gave a non-committal grunt and sat back on his haunches.

Sam crowded into Dean’s shoulder from behind. “That doesn’t sound promising.”

“It’s bad,” was Castiel’s only answer. He didn’t look up, couldn’t face them, just kept staring at the console as if he could make it work by will alone.

Dean was getting an uncomfortable prickly feeling in his neck. “What’s going on, Cas?” Maybe he’d sounded harsher than he’d meant to, but he felt entirely justified when Sam said, at the same time: “The radio is fried, isn’t it.”

Cas shook his head, then. “It isn’t functional, as you say. I don’t know how this could have happened. We didn’t crash-land, and I cannot find a fault.”

“So we’re stuck here. Like frigging Robinson Crusoe?!”

Cas looked up at Dean, that mournful kicked-puppy expression on his face. “The analogy is accurate, I fear.”

“Okay, this-” Dean gestured at all of it – them, their surroundings, the frigging plane. “-this stopped being fun.”

“I am sorry,” Cas said, looking down at his hands.

“No, but- it’s almost like we knew. Remember when we decided to ration the food?”

“You mean, when you and Cas decided to ration the food. Like _you_ knew.”

Sam tipped his head to one side. “Dean, I didn’t mean it like that. You promised we were over this trust issue thing.”

“Yeah, I’m over it. I didn’t mean it like that either. But come on, Sammy! Not everything has to have some supernatural explanation!”

“Fair enough. Then what is it?”

Dean ran a hand over his neck, wiping away sweat and sand. “Hey, Cas, move. Let me take a look.”

Cas made room for Dean before the console. It turned out, that, though Dean might be able to rebuild a car from scratch, he couldn’t fix this. And while Cas was an outstanding pilot, neither could he. By the time they had exhausted their energies, it had become unbearably hot on the beach, and Dean’s t-shirt was clinging to his back. Cas didn’t look any more comfortable. Sam had long since returned to their campsite, to set things up for a longer stay.

“Now what?” Dean asked, leaning against the _Grace_ where the plane actually offered some form of shade.

Cas shrugged. He was sitting on the edge of the door, his legs dangling. He looked exhausted and human, and shrugging was one of the first really human gestures he had picked up. “The blackbox is still transmitting. We must wait for a search party to pick up the signal. One of us should remain with _Grace_ at all times.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll take the first shift. Go see if Sammy needs a hand.”

…~oOo~…

When Sam came to relieve him a couple of hours later, he brought water collected in half a hollowed-out coconut with ragged edges and a single energy bar to split between them. Dean’s stomach was growling, and he really would have preferred a burger and a cocktail.

“Cas says there should be another box of protein bars in the back and more soup, but it won’t last long. We should figure out how to fish or something.”

“Not funny, Sammy.”

“No, it isn’t.” Sam crunched up the wrapper with more force than necessary, and went to hunt down what little food there was still stashed in the plane, before shoving it all at Dean. Not that it was much. “Go to Cas, make sure he drinks something. You know he keeps forgetting.”

Castiel was sitting in the semi-shade by their fireplace, his hair sticking up in all directions and coated in sweat, salt and sand. Dean supposed they didn’t really have fresh water to spare, but the sight really, really made him miss showers.

Cas nodded at Dean in greeting, then watched silently as Dean put down what little additional food he’d brought. There were also a can of coke and one of lemonade, but both seemed sickeningly sweet in this heat.

Dean filled the second half of the coconut out of the water container, and handed it to Cas before flopping down beside him – not too close. It was hot enough without sharing body heat.

Cas only drank a sip that barely wetted his chapped lips before passing the water back to Dean. “How do you feel about foxes, Dean?”

“Wow, Cas. That’s a bit random.”

Castiel just watched him with that curious, intense expression, waiting for an answer.

“Jeez.” Dean leant back and knocked the back of his head against the rock. It hurt more than he expected it to, and the fact that Cas was watching him like a hawk didn’t help. “Why would I care about foxes either way? They’re just animals. Nothing supernatural about them, no matter what legends might say. On the plus side, I’m not allergic to them, so there’s that.”

“I don’t imagine they are pets,” Cas said.

“They aren’t. They’ve just been moving into the cities, looking for leftovers, as far as I know. Hell, you’ll have to ask Sam, he’s the nerdy one.”

“I have scavenged for leftovers. It can’t be a pleasant life.”

Dean was stunned into silence momentarily. He had never fully forgiven himself – or Gadreel, even though he turned out to be an ally in the end – for forcing Cas out of the bunker when the angels had fallen. How could he, even if Cas didn’t seem to bear any grudge on that matter? Still, the former angel had always been too forgiving. “Um. I honestly don’t know, Cas. Why the sudden interest in foxes?”

Cas didn’t reply, just took another sip of water.

“Dude, you don’t have heatstroke or anything, do you?”

“I have been keeping in the shade and have ingested enough water, Dean. I was merely curious.”

“About foxes.”

Castiel met his gaze, unblinking.

“Well, I’m sure we won’t encounter any foxes here. If anything, there might be some birds.”

They left it at that. The rest of their break was spent in companionable silence. There were no news from Sam, no attempt to contact them, no plane or ship on the horizon, and the radio remained stubbornly on the fritz. They made a can of soup for dinner, and then Cas left to relieve Sam and take the nightshift by the _Grace_. He took his sleeping bag and the angel blade, but he hadn’t asked any more random questions, and Dean wasn’t unduly worried.

He came to think that might have been a mistake when he found what looked like a child’s footprints when he approached the plane the following morning, to start his shift. However, Cas was fine and didn’t report anything out of the ordinary or even mentioned anything odd – right up until the point where he was getting ready to leave and asked: “Dean, are you able to draw?”

“What? No, Cas, the only thing I’ve ever drawn is sigils and devil’s traps. I’m not an artist.”

Castiel nodded. “I see.”

“Cas, hold up a second. Did you see anyone tonight? An animal on the beach, maybe?”

“There was no one.” Cas met his eyes squarely, neither nervous nor avoiding. “Do you have reason to suspect there might have been someone?”

“No, uh, no. I’m sure it’s only us three here. I guess I’m starting to imagine things. You know, cabin fever.”

“Cabin fever?”

“You know. Feeling trapped.”

“I understand.”

…~oOo~…

Sam came by to relieve Dean by midday, if he could trust his watch. It might have gotten a few grains of sand into its mechanism, and had randomly started the alarm a couple of times, but that was about the most eventful thing that had happened all morning. Sam, however, looked slightly uneasy.

“Did anything happen?”

“Not a thing.” Dean pulled a face. “This has to be the most boring thing that ever happened to us. I mean, we’ve been collecting water off the rocks, and we still have enough food for days before we run out – and then we can still see if we can catch fish or something. It’s not like we are really in any danger, but I feel like I’m going crazy without something to do!”

“And you were having a freak-out about it when we had to land,” Sam said, with a smile that seemed somehow forced.

“You know how I feel about planes!”

“In all seriousness, though – you haven’t seen anything odd?”

“I could have sworn I saw footprints in the sand this morning – but I must have been wrong. I mean, why would a child be here, and Cas would have seen something, so… Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. It’s like… this feeling. Like we’re being watched, somehow. That, and I’ve been dreaming weird stuff.”

“Weird like normal-weird, or weird like even-for-us-weird?”

Sam shrugged. “Just… weird. It’s not bad or anything, nothing like it was when I had premonitions. It’s just I’ve never dreamed about snakes before. Maybe it’s something Lucifer left behind. Or Gadreel.”

“It’s been a year.”

“Yes, Dean, I know that. Like I said, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

…~oOo~…

The third day brought no sign of rescue, nor any more strange occurrences. Castiel and Dean had taken a bit of time to decorate their shelter with sigils, just in case, since Dean couldn’t shake that prickly feeling at the back of his neck. He was also very hesitant to let Cas leave for his shift all on his own, for some reason he couldn’t pinpoint. Cas firmly but gently dismissed his concern, and he was right to do so. And still…

Sam and Dean used the day to investigate fishing opportunities. They didn’t have a net, of course, but Sam had tried to fashion a provisory harpoon out of sharply barbed palm leaves. That, however, fell apart before they even reached the ocean, and they ended up collecting a couple of fish that had become trapped in a tide pool and which Sam deemed edible. Nothing much happened, until Dean decided to drop by Cas in his plane, and the former angel was far from welcoming, as if he had been interrupted. There was nothing and no one in sight, except for a strange doodle Cas had drawn into the sand with his index finger – it looked a little like a cloud, but he point-blank refused to explain it.

“How important are roses to you, Dean?”

“Okay, seriously, Cas, you need to drink more water.”

Cas tilted his head and squinted up at him from where he sat cross-legged in the sand behind his doodle. “I am not dehydrated.”

“What is it with the weird questions, then? Foxes, drawing, roses – what the hell, Cas?!”

“I’ve had time to think.”

“And you’ve been thinking about roses.”

“Yes.”

“Okay…”

“They seem to me to be quite inappropriate as symbols of love. The thorns are very unfriendly.”

“Well, every rose has its thorn,” Dean said. He was rather proud of that one, but it went straight over Cas’s head.

“I suppose they are beautiful.”

“I’m not much of a romantic, Cas.”

Cas patted the sand beside him in one of those human gestures he’d seen, but hadn’t quite learned to replicate appropriately. “Sit down. Draw a sheep.”

Dean sat, and stared at Cas’s doodle. “A sheep?”

“Yes. Please.”

“I don’t…” Dean sighed, resigned, and stuck his index finger in the sand. By the time he was done, his drawing looked even less like a sheep than Cas’s. It looked like a blob with eyes, and kinda creepy.

Castiel regarded it with a curiously tilted head. “That does not resemble a sheep.”

“Well, I’m not an artist, I told you! Besides, neither does yours!”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Cas looked honestly disappointed.

“All right, that’s it. Enough of this nonsense, Cas, okay? It reminds me of when you were… Just stop it. Let’s head back to the camp. The _Grace_ will manage on her own for a little while, and it doesn’t look like rescue will come today. Sammy and I caught some fish.”

The fish tasted good enough, but their conversation felt stilted. Cas sat further away from the fire than everyone else, like he was trying to be invisible, and he was stubbornly quiet. Sam muttered something about a snake once, and Dean – Dean just didn’t know what was going on anymore. It felt as though he was slowly going insane.

…~oOo~…

“Dessine-moi un mouton.”

Castiel interrupted his vigil over _Grace_ ’s radio to look at the blonde boy standing on the sand by the plane. He looked both lost and decisive, like he did every time. He also spoke French, but as far as Castiel had been able to gather, that had no relevance to his origin. He appeared human, and if Castiel had still been an angel, he would have been able to tell. He had offered the boy some holy water, which he had drunk without hesitation, so at least he wasn’t a demon, and it was unlikely that a ghost would be able to interact as convincingly with his surroundings. Cas didn’t have pure salt, but he’d attempted the test with seawater, and nothing had happened. However, he couldn’t be entirely certain.

Castiel understood French, of course. It was a simple tongue in comparison with many he had picked up during his existence. “Je suis désolé. Je ne suis pas un artist.” He hadn’t bothered to ask if the boy spoke English. It was a welcome change to speak one of the many languages other than English, and it wasn’t like he would be able to introduce the boy to the Winchesters. They wouldn’t understand.

“I’m not an artist,” Cas said again, and pointed at the drawing he had created in the sand. “Neither is my friend.”

The boy sat on the sand facing him, folding his legs up under him. “I have a friend. He is a fox. I tamed him.”

“My friends are human,” Cas said. He had considered asking the Winchesters to buy a pet, but it would be impractical. They were often away for days on end hunting.

“Did you tame them, as well?”

Cas smiled. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose you could say that. Though I don’t presume to have done it single-handedly.”

“You talk like the grown-ups sometimes, but you are nothing like them.”

“Where are you from?”

The boy didn’t answer. He never answered direct questions, just stared at the sky. Castiel had done that a lot in the past days, as well. Without the artificial lights of civilization, the night sky looked magnificent. Castiel tried not to think of Heaven often, but the ethereal beauty of space reminded him. And yet, a night sky was something he could never have experienced in Heaven, unless he intruded upon one that catered for a human soul.

“Where are you from?” the boy asked, as if he’d just come up with the question out of nowhere. His long yellow scarf curled into the sand beside him.

“I used to be an angel. I came from Heaven.”

“My planet is B612. It’s very small.”

“Heaven is infinite. However, I cannot return.”

“I miss it. It’s my home, you know.”

“My friend has been dreaming of serpents.”

“That isn’t good. The serpent lies.”

Castiel didn’t reply. He was sure that the boy did not speak of snakes in general. Castiel had observed the animals that frequented the island, and there were no snakes among them. Most were birds that stopped to gather new strength for their flight. Castiel sometimes wished it were as easy for the Winchesters and him, but he had no Grace, and _Grace_ didn’t have enough fuel.

“You understand.”

“Yes, I think I do.”

“Hmm. You can call me The Little Prince.”

“That is a nice name,” Castiel said. He wasn’t just trying to be polite. As human denominations went, _le petit prince_ had a pleasant ring to it, though he had been around the Winchesters long enough to know that it wasn’t a typical name.

“I had a friend once. He had a machine like yours, and he also fell from the sky.” The Little Prince laughed. “But he wasn’t an angel.”

“I would have liked to meet him.”

“It was a long time ago. But I will ask the fox. Maybe he will agree to meet you. Tomorrow.”

…~oOo~…

Dean woke to Sam screaming. It wasn’t the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but Dean still hated it every single time. And it definitely wasn’t just because his behemoth of a brother kept flailing his arms about and hitting Dean.

“Sam! Goddammit, Sammy!”

Sam bolted upright – and brought the ceiling of palm leaves tumbling down around them.

“Dean.”

“Yeah, still alive. What the hell, Sam?” Dean pushed a leaf off his shoulder, blinking into the almost darkness.

“Just a dream, I think.”

“You think!?”

“I’m sorry, okay? We’ll just put this stuff away and rebuild it in the morning.”

Dean nodded. “Want to share with the class?”

“Dean…” Sam was moving around, his frame silhouetted against the night sky, pulling his sleeping bag from under a pile of dried out palm leaves.  

“Yeah, I’m listening.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dean pushed himself to his feet, dislodging another leaf, and tugged the blanket and his sleeping bag, which had become snagged on something. “It was snakes again, wasn’t it.”

“They’re just dreams, Dean. They feel nothing like premonitions or anything. I can’t even remember them when I’ve been up for a few minutes.”

“They are frigging nightmares, Sammy, and they aren’t normal! Not even for us normal.”

“I’ve had recurring nightmares before.”

“Yeah, about clowns. And monsters. And Lucifer. And Hell. Not frigging snakes! You’re not even scared of snakes.”

Sam didn’t reply.

Dean bunched up the sleeping bag. “Whatever. Let’s go and keep Cas company? We can sleep in the _Grace_ just as well at night.”

“I’ll get the water,” Sam said, quietly.

They made the trek to the plane in the light of a pen flashlight that Sam had dug up somewhere. Its batteries were slowly but surely dying, the pinprick of light growing progressively dimmer. Once, Dean imagined spotting something out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t mention it. He really didn’t need to add his own paranoia to Sam’s strange dreams and Cas’s all around weird behavior.

The _Grace_ , once it came into sight, was easily visible – Castiel kept a cockpit light running over night. He needed to start the engines occasionally to recharge the battery, wasting fuel, but since they didn’t even have enough to take off, let alone reach the nearest airport, it didn’t really matter either way.

Castiel had obviously heard them, since he greeted them with his angel blade in hand, his own sleeping bag crumbled up and discarded in the cockpit behind him. “Sam, Dean.”

“Heya, Cas. Sam brought the roof down over our heads.” Dean ignored the dark gaze Sam was shooting in his direction. “Thought we spend the night here, rebuild everything tomorrow.”  

“Oh.” Cas lowered the angel blade, staring past Dean into the darkness.

Dean moved into his line of vision. “Hey, is everything okay?”

Castiel blinked at him, then his tense posture melted. “Yes, of course, Dean. There is space in the back of _Grace_ for you to sleep.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’m going back to sleep anyway, I might as well relieve you,” Sam said.

Castiel shot him a sharp glance, then looked back at Dean with an unspoken question in his eyes. They had discussed Sam’s dreams during dinner, and it was just a little gratifying to know that Cas, for all his own weird behavior, found the nightmares just as disquieting as Dean.

“Very well.” Castiel climbed back into the cockpit, collecting his sleeping bag on the way, then set up a quick sleeping area with Dean in the back of the small plane. It was surprisingly spacious once they’d turned the seats – without Sam, it certainly felt less cramped than their makeshift hut.

Once they were settled, Dean tucked one hand under his head as a pillow and stared up at the ceiling of the plane. Sam’s frame was actually obscuring most of the light coming from the cockpit, but it was much brighter than back on the beach, and he didn’t really feel much like sleeping anymore, either.

“Hey, Cas? Are you doing okay?”

“Yes, Dean.”

“No weird dreams?”

“None.”

“Okay… It’s just… I keep getting this feeling, like… Like we’re not the only people, beings, whatever, here.”

Cas didn’t reply.

“Am I going stir-crazy?”

“You are not crazy, Dean. Your caution is understandable.”

“That’s… good to know, I guess.”

And that was that. Castiel fell asleep pretty quickly after that, and at some point, Dean, too, drifted off. He felt better, safer, now that they were all together again.

In the early morning hours, Sam shook Dean awake to get an hour or two of shut-eye, while Dean kept watch over the stubbornly silent radio. Castiel didn’t seem bothered by the disturbance – he just rolled over and continued his slumber.

They were all awake by the time the sun had well and truly risen, and made their way back to the campsite for breakfast. The collapsed roof looked half as bad in the daylight. None of the leaves, though dried out by now, had broken, and all they had to do was stick them back together.

Castiel, who wasn’t really a morning person, said very little until he asked, out of the blue: “Do you have knowledge of astronomy, Sam?”

Sam was always eager to lap up any bits of angelic knowledge Cas could throw at him, though the former angel seemed to be unaware of Sam’s nerdgasms. Predictably, he perked up at the question immediately, despite looking tired and sleep-deprived. “Not really. I looked into moon cycles and planetary movements for hunts, you know, but I never had the time for any deep space research.”

“That is regrettable,” was all Castiel had to offer as a reply. He took a bite out of his energy bar, chewing slowly.

Dean poked his knee. “Come on, Cas, spit it out. What’s on your mind?”

Cas swallowed as if it were the most complicated act in the history of humanity. “Does the color of the wheat fields hold a special significance for you, Dean?”

“Okay, that’s it!” Dean was at the end of his rope, and he couldn’t let this go on, never mind that Cas actually flinched at his outburst. Cas hadn’t flinched at anything he did since… well, since _then_. “You aren’t broken anymore, Cas! Stop acting like that! I don’t give a damn about your random questions!”

Castiel very slowly, very calmly, stood up. He looked… disappointed. “Maybe he was right. Maybe you do lack imagination and curiosity.” He scanned Dean’s face once, then turned his back on them and headed out onto the beach.

Dean was too astonished to do much but stare after him until he’d vanished from sight – then, his voice came rushing back. “ _He_? Who the hell was he talking about?”

Sam had no answer, but he shoved the last bite of his breakfast into his mouth and headed after Castiel, leaving Dean to pace nervously up and down. He had a rough idea of how long it took to get to the _Grace_ and back, but Sam might have caught up with Cas before that, or they might have sat down to talk, or, worst of all, Cas might have headed of along the beach and not returned to the plane at all. Sometimes, the traces they’d left in the sand were visible long after they’d made them, but Dean couldn’t trust the traces any longer. If he did, and if his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, there was a child on the beach with them, and that just couldn’t be.

“Dammit!” Dean resisted the urge to pointlessly hurl objects around, and dedicated his pent up anger to rebuilding their shelter instead. Of course, it didn’t work, and that only fuelled his frustration – and Sam still wasn’t back.

Dean collected the gun and followed his brother’s footsteps in the sand.

He had been heading towards the _Grace_ , but neither Cas nor Sam was in sight. The plane lay deserted in the morning sun, gleaming glass and lifeless steel, and no sign of the two people Dean would give his life for without hesitation – hell, had given his life for. Two tracks of footprints let up to the plane, but none turned away from it – none that could be real, anyway.

Dean dragged a hand over his eyes, staring at the pattern of a child’s feet leading up to the plane from another direction, only to vanish as well. It didn’t disappear, not even as he poked his finger at it. Apparently, he was really becoming delusional.

“Dammit, Sammy, Cas – I know you can’t hear me anymore since you’re human, but you can’t do this to me. I need you both. I’m sorry, okay? It’s just… you were scaring me, man. And you know how I get when things scare me. I lash out. I didn’t mean it.”

Suddenly, a hand fell heavily on his shoulder. “Dean.”

Dean turned to look up at Castiel, silhouetted sharply against the sun and the impossibly blue sky. For a second, he looked like an angel again, powerful and scary and having appeared out of nowhere, until Dean’s eyes adjusted and he saw that the exhaustion settling around Cas’s eyes was still there. He wore the same day-old t-shirt, stained with sand and oil and sweat, and still had the scruff that had been allowed to grow on his face because Cas _never_ shaved without proper bathroom commodities. “Cas?”

Castiel nodded and pulled him to his feet.

“Where’s Sammy?”

“Sam is well, Dean. You just need to allow yourself to believe.”

“Believe?”

“Yes. After everything you’ve seen, is it so hard to believe that there are things on your Earth you do not understand?”

“Dude, it’s because of what I’ve seen that I don’t believe that. I mean, we were face to face with the devil. We’ve hunted every evil thing out there. How much more can there be? It’s all just there, what’s the point of belief?”

Castiel chuckled, and it was still such a new sound that it gave Dean pause. “You believed in me.”

“I didn’t until you showed off your wings.”

“Yes. Come with me, then.” Cas held out his hand, and – dammit all – Dean trusted him. And so he took it.

Suddenly, he could hear Sam laughing.

Castiel pulled Dean after him until they had rounded the plane, and Dean’s jaw dropped. His little brother was crouched in the sand, playing with a fox, of all things, and a child stood in the shade of the plane’s wing, watching with a serene expression on his face.

“Everything is fine, you see,” Castiel said, still smiling.

“What the hell, Cas?”

“Dean!” Sam looked up, and Dean could have sworn the fox protested against the interruption of playtime. “Don’t worry, it’s safe – I checked.”

“Sam’s pocket knife is pure iron”, Cas added, “and I tested with Holy Water and salt. The Little Prince is unlike the abominations we have encountered.”

“The Little Prince?” Dean stared at the boy, who laughed brightly and waved at him.

“That is what he calls himself, yes.”

“You know that’s a book, right?”

Cas’s expression darkened a little. “Yes, I remember. Much of the knowledge Metatron gave me has faded since I became human, but I chose to retain its contents. I enjoyed the message.”

“So all that random stuff about roses, sheep, foxes, astronomy…?”

“Of course.”

“And you didn’t think you ought to tell us that there was something running around pretending to be a frigging character out of a children’s book?”

Cas avoided his gaze, looking at the _Grace_ instead. “I had… doubts.”

“About what?”

“Whether you were still capable of looking below the surface. I am sorry, Dean, but I still find it difficult to understand you. Sam – his wonder and curiosity make him much easier. I should have known better.”

Dean breathed in deeply. “Okay. Explanation time. What’s that stuff about snakes?”

“The serpent will no longer bother you.” Dean looked at the speaker and came face to face with the boy, thing, whatever, that pretended to be the Little Prince. He even had the sandy hair, the greenish shirt and the impossible scarf, despite the stifling heat. He was smiling. “I will return home tonight.”

Dean glanced at Cas, and was met with a deep sadness in the former angel’s eyes. “I have attempted to tell him. He won’t listen.”

“Okay… So what is this all about, then? Is it a game? Or what?”

“Don’t question it, Dean,” Sam said, appearing at Dean’s side. The fox was watching them from a safe distance.

“Don’t be sad, Castiel. You, too, will go home tomorrow.”

Castiel crouched down until he was face to face with the boy. “I’m sorry.”

“No. I gave you a present – all three of you.” He looked briefly up at Sam, then Dean. “On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur.”

Dean could recognize French when he heard it, but he wasn’t exactly a language expert. He leant over to Sam and whispered: “What?”

Sam just shook his head.

“Bien sûr,” Castiel said to the Little Prince. “Merci.”

Okay, Cas speaking French was all kinds of strange. Dean had known, of course, that the former angel was proficient in several languages, including Latin, and, naturally, Enochian, but he’d still only heard him speak English when it came to communicating. The Little Prince laughed a little, then reached out to sling his arms around Cas’s neck for an awkward embrace.

When he let go, Castiel stood and stepped back between the brothers. “We should leave.”

They turned their back on the plane and returned to the campsite in silence. Sam, though his excitement had simmered down a little, looked as though the weight of a hundred years had been lifted off his shoulders – and dammit, maybe Dean needed to get him a puppy, after all. It had never seemed like a good idea, with their life on the road, but if that was all it took to make his kid-brother happy…

Dean, well. He needed time to sort through it all, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to find. Hell, he’d known for so long that monsters were real, perhaps he had forgotten to just marvel at things once in a while. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that, yes, he loved fiction, but the haste with which he had equated Castiel’s wondering, his questioning of the nature of things that actually existed, with madness disturbed him. He should know better, really.

And Cas – Cas didn’t seem to want to initiate any conversation anytime soon. He gave them a hand in setting up the shelter again, and he ate with them, but Dean could tell that he wasn’t really focusing on the present. When the sun had set, he found the former angel sitting in the sand just outside their little group of rocks, staring across the beach at the stars stretching over the night sky.

Dean settled down beside him, careful not to jostle the former angel, but to his surprise Castiel acknowledged him with a glance and breathed out deeply. “Dean.”

“I get it.”

“I know.”

“What did he tell you?”

“On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur.”

“Yes, in English, Cas.”

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“Is that a quote from-”

“Yes.”

…~oOo~…

Their rescue arrived the following morning. On the seaplane that took them back while the _Grace_ was refueled, Sam couldn’t contain his excitement any longer and began bouncing ideas off Dean as to who, or what, the Little Prince had been. His puppy-eyed wonder was delightful, honestly, but Dean had precious little input to offer. He had no idea what to make of their experience, and frankly, he wasn’t sure what it had done to Castiel, who was more pensive than ever.

Surprisingly, it was Castiel who cut into their discussion with quiet conviction. “I think he was one of the Menehune. They are the fairy folk of these islands, occasionally mischievous but benevolent, unless disturbed. They are very shy. But it doesn’t matter.”

“But they are a species we’ve have never heard of before!” Sam said, with enthusiasm.

Castiel offered a small smile. “Yes, Sam. And your curiosity is admirable. But learning about his species does not tell us who he was. It would be like describing you as human or… calling me an angel when I was one. It would tell you nothing about who I was.”

“Because what is essential is invisible to the eye,” Dean said, suddenly putting it together.

Castiel looked at him, and held his gaze. “Yes. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.” And maybe that was all they really needed to believe.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Antoine de St Exupéry’s _Le Petit Prince_.
> 
> Disclaimer: Supernatural et al © CW and Erik Kripke. No infringement intended, no money made.


End file.
